Mall Group digs deep to retain clients
Retailer to spend Bt650m to hold on to customers
The Mall Group plans to spend Bt650 million, or 30 per cent of its total marketing budget, on its M Card loyalty programme next year in the hope of retaining its existing 2.2 million card members who are loyal to the brand and who enjoy a higher-than-average spending capacity.
The group's general manager for marketing, Nonglak Lohamanop, said customer-experience management (CEM) and customer-relationship management (CRM) would be two key strategies upon which the group would focus to retain its loyal clients. The strategies fit quite well with current retail competition, which is growing more intense, she said.
"We have already invested more than Bt1 billion in our M Card loyalty programme over the past two years. We have 2.2 million members so far, of whom 75 per cent are active shoppers," she said.
Nonglak said the key strategy for the M Card programme in its third year would not be to build up its membership, but to retain existing members. The group will spend Bt650 million on advertising, discounts and point-plus promotions to this end.
The group spent Bt600 million on its loyalty-card programme last year, on top of a marketing budget of about Bt400 million in its first year.
"We will apply M Card as one of our key marketing tools to promote shopper loyalty, as well as other tools such as sectional promotions and events," she said.
Nonglak said The Mall Group had set aside Bt2.2 billion as its total marketing budget for next year. Thirty per cent of this would be for the loyalty-card programme. This year's total marketing budget is about Bt2 billion.
She said the spending per transaction of M Card holders was between 10 and 20 per cent higher on average than that of general shoppers.
Members of M Platinum Card spend an average of about Bt16,000 per month. Other M Card members, including holders of M Prestige and M Expat Cards, spend about Bt4,500 per month.
The Mall Group has launched a campaign titled "M Card 2nd Anniversary Important Day" to celebrate the second anniversary of the M Card loyalty programme. It begins today and will run until January 8.
The group has invested Bt72 million in the 117-day campaign, which is expected to attract participation by 80 per cent of M Card members and generate sales of up to Bt16 billion.
